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DR. PETERS' DISCOURSE 



BEFORE THE 



SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION 



Cnlkgiiite imb ^[iFologifal dEburation 



AT THE WEST. 



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COLLEGES RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. 



DISCOURSE, 

DELIVERED IN THE PARK RRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

NEWARK, N. J., GOT. 29, 1851, 



BEFORE THE 



^nrieti} for tjie ^[^rntnntiaii nf Cnllegiate mil 
(Cjitnlngiral Ctaratioti at tjie Wul 



ABSALOM PETEKS, D. D., 

PASTOE OF THE FIEST OHUHCH, WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS. 



NEW-YORK : 

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 ANN-STREET. 

1851. 






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"Resolved — That the thanks of the Board of Directors be pre- 
sented to the Rev. Dr. Peters for his Discourse delivered last even- 
ing, and that a copy be requested for publication." 

An extract from the minutes of the proceedings of the Directors 
of the Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Edu- 
cation at the West, at their Annual Meeting in Newark, N. J. 

G. N. JUDD, Secretary. 



Oclober 30, 1851. 



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DISCOURSE. 



ECOLES. VII. 8. 

BETTER IS THE END OF A THING THAN THE BEGINNING THEREOF, 

PTHHEEE is one continent on tlie globe, wliicli has 
-*- no College. Africa contains perhaps a liiin- 
dred millions of people, and its first College is yet 
to be founded. Benevolent men, of wisdom and 
foresight, are beginning to see that a College on 
that continent is needed, as a light to shine in a 
dark place, and that the founding of such an insti- 
tution is practicable. A Board of " Trustees of Do- 
nations for Education in Liheria^^'' incorporated by 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have taken 
the work in hand, and it will doubtless soon be 
done. 

In their first report they justly magnify and 
commend the object of their undertaking, in lan- 
guage which has arrested my attention, and led to 







tlie selection of tlie text for tlie present occasion. 
" Tlie founding of Harvard College," they say, " was 
an era in tlie history of tlie human race. It was 
the beginning of liberal education for a continent. 
Without a first College, this continent could not 
have become what it is. The planting of a first 
College in Africa will form another era. It will 
be a work equally rich in beneficial results, and 
equally honorable to the philanthropy that secures 
its accomplishment." 

I do not find fault with these statements. 
These are great thoughts, both of the past and 
the future — just and true thoughts. And it is 
well to think of things yet to be done, while we re- 
flect upon the past, for instruction and encourage- 
ment. It is indeed the grand element and charac- 
teristic of wisdom always to be looking onward, 
and to labor for a worthy end. The end, in thought, 
is ever before the means. It is that for which all 
the means are selected, and is therefore first in pur- 
pose, though last in attainment. And the means 
employed for an end are important only in propor- 
tion to the importance of the end. The same may 
be said of the heginning of a thing, the '' terminus a 
qiio^'' as the old theologians expressed it, or the first 
of a series of means. It is important only as a step 
of advancement toward the end, or the '■'■terniinus 



ad quemP So it is ever true, that " tlie end of a 
thing is better than the beginning thereof." The 
beginning is but one of perhaj^s a thousand means, 
all subordinate to the same end ; but the end is the 
crowning result of the whole series of means. 

We deceive ourselves then, when we imao-ine 
the first of a series of events, all tending to a com- 
mon result, to be greater and better than all the 
rest, simply because it is the>"^^. There is, in fact, 
a common honor due to agencies that cooperate for 
the same end. That is the greatest, whether it be 
the first or the last, which is the most efiicacious ; 
and the end is greater than all. The first may be 
the least of all the events in the series. So our Sa- 
viour represents the beginning of true piety in the 
soul of man, when he says, " The kingdom of God is 
like a grain of mustard-seed, which when it is sown 
in the earth, is less than all seeds that be in the 
earth;" but "it becometh greater than all herbs." 
Other influences are added, a thousand-fold greater 
than the first, and that which was begun in weak- 
ness and obscurity, terminates in power and glory. 
The same is tilie of the kingdom of God in the 
whole world. It is a constitution of things founded 
in wisdom and adaj^ted to an end. It had a begin- 
ning. It has had an advancement to the present 
time. But it is not limited to the ages of its past 







history. It has also a prophetic history, by which 
the field of its enlargement and the path of its pro- 
gress are indefinitely extended. In its prophecy, it 
is a kingdom to come — a universal, an everlasting 
kingdom — ^ teeming with events, all important, all 
tending to the same grand result, all cooperating 
to hasten the ages of its ultimate and universal 
triumph in the world, when the blessedness of 
earth will " shade away into the blessedness of 
heaven." Then will it be seen how much better is 
the end of all things, than the beginning of all 
things. The splendid close of human history will 
reflect its own brightness and grandeur over all the 
agencies of its advancement, and each event will ap- 
pear important and great, just in proportion to its 
efficiency in bringing to pass the glory that shall 
then be revealed. 

It is in the midst of this great onward move- 
ment of things, that we live — far on in the history 
of human progress. Great things have been done 
for the advancement of the race. But great, and 
still greater, remain to be done ; and it is no calami- 
ty to us, that we were not born at the beginning of 
the world, that so we might have taken part in 
" first things," and helped to lay primitive foundar 
tions. Is it not rather a privilege, that we have our 
work to do at a sublime height in the building of 



V 






God ? It is the same building still, and our labor 
is no less important — no less necessary — tlian was 
that of primitive men ; and we are nearer, than 
they, to the shoutings and paeans which will accom- 
pany the bringing forth of the top stone thereof. 

I propose, then, to present the Society, whose 
anniversary we here celebrate, ct'S a mea?is to cm end 
in the hingdom of God. It looks to the consumma- 
tion of all things. The system of education, which 
it proposes to advance, is a religious system. It 
makes its appeal, primarily and principally, to en- 
lightened and religious men, — men who have re- 
spect unto the recompense of an eternal reward, — 
and I wish to show the privilege and the duty of 
laboring for the permanent support and advance- 
ment of this system of education. This I would do 
by briefly adverting to its origin and aim, and to 
the important relation which it bears to the great 
missionary enterprises of the present day. 

Colleges — for what is called academical instruc- 
tion, preparatory to j^rofessional learning — have 
ever been intimately associated with the religion of 
the countries where they have existed. It is also a 
matter of history, that an object more early em- 
braced and more steadily kept in view, than any 
other, by these institutions, has been to su23ply the 
Church with an educated priesthood or ministry. 



y 



This was tlie idea in wMcli the earliest Colleges, of 
whicli we have any account in modern times, had 
their origin. In the ninth century, when Charle- 
magne was awakened to the importance of the ad- 
vancement of learning in his vast dominions, we are 
told, " he established schools in every convent and 
cathedral, intended chiefly for the education of 
clergymen." Yet " young men of high families, not 
intended for religious orders, were instructed in 
them,"''^' showing that they were not exclusively 
professional schools, but Colleges, for the instruc- 
tion of all such as were designed to be educated 
in that dark age. These convent and cathedral 
schools were for a long time the highest institutions 
of learning in the countries where they were esta- 
blished. From them proceeded the rectors of seve- 
ral schools in France, in a later age, where " instruc- 
ti'on was given in rhetoric, philosophy, and theology," 
and out of which grew the University of Paris. 
Equally associated with the advancement of religion 
was the College system of all the Universities of Eu- 
rope. The numerous Colleges of the Jesuits, in all 
countries, were also strictly religious in their aim. 
They constituted, beyond all doubt, the most effec- 
tive part of the wonderful machinery of that vast 
organization to subserve the interests of the Eomish 
church. 

* Encyc. Americana. 



V 



Colleges, then, at tlie time of tlie planting of this 
country, were every where regarded as religious in- 
stitutions. Our fathai's well understood, both from 
history and the nature of the case, that the advance- 
ment of religion in any form, in the new world, 
would require the existence of Colleges for the edu- 
cation of the ministry of the Church. The advan- 
tages of these institutions in preparing young men 
for the other professions, were by no means lost 
sight of, or undervalued. And the religious charac- 
ter of the College was considered scarcely less es- 
sential for the right education of those designed for 
civil office and employment, than for the appro- 
priate training of candidates for the ministry. But 
in a Protestant College, and especially in a Puritan 
College, all other objects, great though they might 
be, were held to be secondary to that of a comj^e- 
tent supply of able and faithful ministers of the gos- 
pel. And our Puritan fathers were earnest men in 
their religion. For themselves and their country 
they sought first the kingdom of God and his right- 
eousness. Our earliest Colleges, therefore, were 
adapted to this end. They were founded, as it 
was expressly said of one of them, " that the Church 
might never want a learned and pious ministry^ 
This was the great idea of the men of New Eng- 
land in forming their educational system. "None 



/ 



10 




of tlie least concerns," says Mather, " tliat lay upon 
tlie spirits of these reformers, was the condition 
of their posterity. They also did hetimes endea- 
vor the erection of a College^ for the training wp 
of a successive ministry in the country T^' 

It is pleasant here to reflect, that this religious 
idea has ever been cherished, to a wide extent, in 
onr country. Most of our Colleges, w^ to the present 
time, have originated in it. Religious principle has 
called them into being and sustained them, and re- 
ligious men have been selected for their guardians 
and instructors. 

It was found, however, in the j)rogress of our 
experience, that the demands of religion, in respect 
to the great object of our College system, were not 
fully met. The course of instruction in College, 
being designed for all classes of students, could not 
be extended to subjects strictly professional, with- 
out adding a longer time, and providing Faculties of 
instruction for each of the learned professions. But 
this would require our Colleges to be Universities, 
and would demand an outlay, both of money and 
of men, quite too great to be sustained by our 
smaller institutions. This has led to the necessity 
of separate professional schools. In these, the pro- 
fits and honors of the secular professions have been 
found a sufficient encouragement — after the Colleges 
* Mather's Magnalia. 



V-.-t;^ 



11 

have sent out tlieir sons — to provide suitable ad- 
vantages for tlie prosecution of tlieir appropriate 
studies. Hence liave arisen our schools of Law, of 
Medicine, and of Professional Science. 

But the school of Theology needed other sup- 
port. Like the College, it is essentially a religious 
institution, and was found, in experience, to be 
necessary to the carrying out of the religious idea 
of the College system. Hence have been founded, 
by benevolent men and the churches, within the 
last fifty years, our Theological Seminaries. They 
have become an essential part of our system, " for 
the training up of a successive ministry in the 
country." The College and the Theological Semi- 
nary, as to their main design, are one in aim, and one 
in the ground of their appeal for encouragement and 
support. Like other religious foundations, they 
must be, to a large extent, charitable institutions. 
This is necessary to make them available to the 
poor, as well as the rich. It is also essential to the 
maintenance of theii' religious character and influ- 
ence ; for though it is grateful to acknowledge that, 
in some instances, State patronage has been liber- 
ally bestowed, it must not be forgotten, that, in all 
cases wliere this patronage has been so given, as to 
remove the College from its religious aims and im- 
pulses, it has induced feebleness and inefficiency, in 



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respect to education itself. It separates the busi- 
ness of education from tlie most effective of tliose 
self-inspiring uses, whicli alone can impart life and 
energy to tlie means of instruction. History and 
all experience liave taught us, that, if we would 
secure the best results of education, we must " see to 
it that our Colleges are kept under the control 
of enlightened religious principle. They must be 
founded, if need be, and sustained and directed by 
religiously educated and benevolent men. 

Such is the system of liberal education, which 
has grown up in our country. It is no abridgment 
of privilege to us, that we did not live at the begin- 
ning of this system, to take part with the wise and 
the good, who so nobly discharged the obligations 
of that age. Our Fathers did a great work, when 
they planted " a first College " in the new world. 
It was a foundation for many generations, and their 
names shall be had in everlasting remembrance. 
But what is a foundation without a superstructure ? 
A second and a third College, in due time, were as 
much needed as the first ; and the founding of Har- 
vard College was not "the beginning of liberal 
education for a continent^'' if we fail to carry out 
the system, then begun, until the wliole continent^ 
from sea to sea, shall be amply provided with simi- 



■fiii 



13 



lar institutions. If this be not done, the founding 
of that first College was but the beginning of a 
failure. With all the good it may have done in its 
sphere, it will not have accomplished its end, in re- 
spect to the diffusion of the advantages of liberal 
learning to the ever-increasing and wide-spreading 
population of our country. 

It was never intelligently proposed to concen- 
trate these advantages in a single University, " cum 
privilegio," nor to confine them to a few Colleges, 
at great distances from each other. The wide ex- 
tent of the country, the prospective increase of 
population, the form of the government, the in- 
dependence of the States, and, above all, the Pro- 
testant principle of universal education, have for- 
bid such a design ; and the Colleges have adapted 
themselves to their appropriate spheres, in accord- 
ance with this state of things. They have thus 
trained the public mind to feel, that a College, in 
each district of convenient extent, is a great bless- 
ing to the people. It is therefore placed beyond 
all doubt, that our country, in the whole extent of 
it, is to be a land of Colleges. Our system of edu- 
cation has already taken its form, and such are its 
tendencies. The impulses of the better informed 
of the people are also in the same direction. Every 
new State, and many of the sects of religionists, 




14 



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wlietlier evangelical or infidel, will have their Col- 
leges. There will be no lack of these institutions, 
in number, name, and form. The danger, indeed, 
is, that in our new States, they will be more numer- 
ous, than can be consistent with their proper sup- 
port and their most healthful influence. 

Merely to increase the number of Colleges in 
this country, therefore, without a due regard to the 
necessities of the respective fields they ai'e intended 
to supply, is not a legitimate end of CoUegial par- 
pose or enterprise; for here, as I have intimated, 
there is no danger of failure. There will be Col- 
leges enough. But there is a higher aim than this, 
which is sought by the enlightened patrons of our 
College system. It is to hold up an elevated stand- 
ard of education in the older Colleges, and to en- 
courage the planting of new ones only where there 
is a reasonable prospect, that that standard will be 
maintained. Add to this the religious aim, which 
should ever be kept in view, in the instruction of 
the young, and you have the system of education, 
which it is the object of this Society to encourage 
and patronize in our new and rising States. 

Look now at the present and prospective rela- 
tions of this system of Collegiate and Theological 
education in our country. As a religious system, it 
has grown up, in this age, to a degree of import- 



15 



aiice, whicli was not dreamed of in tlie early years 
of our history. It lias become, providentially, a 
part of a greater, a far more extended system, than 
was even imagined by the founders of our first 
College. Less than a century had then elapsed, 
after the age of Luther. The Reformation was 
young. Its light had but recently begun to shine 
out of darkness. Protestantism had but just taken 
root in Europe, and Puritanism^ that still better 
and riper fruit of the Reformation, had scarcely 
been known fifty years, as a doctrine and a life, in 
the Protestant churches. It had been struggling 
for existence, and rising amid tears and blood, until 
it found an asylum in a land not before inhabited 
by civilized man. Here it began, in its feebleness, 
to plant its institutions and to provide for a future, 
whose greatness was not seen. They had the true 
faith. They trusted in God, whom they came hither 
to serve. But of what God would do with them, 
or with their influence, on a new and unexplored 
continent, they were necessarily ignorant. Who 
would inhabit the land \ Would their posterity 
dwell, side by side, with the Aborigines, for whose 
education, conversion, and civilization they intended 
to provide ? Or would their own race be so multi- 
plied, and so armed with power — and with apolo- 
gies, right or wrong — as to drive out the heathen 



16 



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before them, and become themselves a great nation ? 
These were questions, to which there was no answer 
in nature, nor in the oracles of God. They went 
forward, as Abraham did, not knowing whither 
they went. But they walked in the steps of Abra- 
ham's faith, and the God of Abraham directed 
them. They planted such institutions as were 
pleasing to him, to whose wisdom they committed 
their adaptation to the great ends of his provi- 
dence, whatever might be its developments in the 
future. 

But two hundred years have produced changes, 
of which our Pilgrim Fathers could have had no 
adequate conception. Should they now rise from 
the dead, to see what we see, they would cry out, 
" Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, O 
Lord, be all the praise." Not of man, but in the 
wisdom of God, fields have been opened for the 
action of the institutions which they planted, and 
cooperating agencies have arisen, which give to 
those institutions an extent of influence, far beyond 
the anticipations of any man on earth two centu- 
ries ago. 

The country itself — ^how marvellously changed ! 
Then, uj)on its border, there was a handful of 
men. Now, it has opened its broad bosom to a 
population of twenty-five millions, and myriads 



17 



more are rusHng into it, while its natural increase 
is rapid and healtliful. The red men of the forest 
and of the prairie, have yielded their possessions to 
the sons of the Pilgrims, and, of vast tracts of the 
land, it may almost be said in the language of the 
Prophet, " Her wilderness is like Eden, and her de- 
sert like the garden of the Lord." 

Meantime mighty changes have been wrought 
in the condition of the world. Governments have 
been meliorated, and the intercourse of nations is 
increased by facilities new and surprising. New 
light has also beamed upon the relations and re- 
sponsibilities of the Church of Christ to the rest of 
mankind, and men of faith have every where begun 
to address themselves, in good earnest, to the work 
of the world's conversion. 

Of the agencies which are already in operation, 
for this end, some of the most effective are the Mis- 
sionary Societies of our own country. It has begun 
to be understood and felt, by all in our churches 
who care for the conversion of the world, that our 
part in the work is to be a great one. We have 
taken the field under this impression. Our origin 
and history, the civil and religious liberty we enjoy, 
the extent of our territory, its agricultural, commer- 
cial, and mineral wealth, its present and prospective 
population, the power and influence of the govern- 
2 







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18 

ment among tlie nations of tlie eartli, tlie intelli- 
gence and enterprise of tlie people, and tlie fact 
tliat Christianity — heaven-born, and owning no au- 
thority but that of the Bible — is the religion of our 
churches, all, all indicate, that we have a great 
work to do. Where much is given, much is re- 
quired. But to what nation on the globe has God 
given so rich an inheritance as this ? 

OUE COUWTET FOE THE SAKE OF THE WOELD, 

therefore, is the appropriate watchword of Ameri- 
can Christians. " The field is the world ;" and the 
end^ upon which we seize first, in thought, and to 
which the eye of our faith should ever be directed, 
is the glory of God in the universal triumphs of his 
grace. But the means adapted to this end are nu- 
merous and multiform. In the vast machinery of 
Christian philanthropy, there is a wheel within a 
wheel, for every man to touch, and points of power, 
which are accessible to every Christian community, 
church, or nation. And there is a precedence and 
succession of these points of religious influence, 
which is beautiful in its order. Causes must pre- 
cede effects ; and it is clear as day, that if we would 
perform the great Missionary work, which devolves 
on the churches of this country, we must educate 
the men, whose labors are indispensable to its ac- 
complishment. If then it was a worthy design of 



M 



vS»5«lW»«yvs'^'»i.-»i'Ji« CYJi.r^Mt>'uv"'^i^ 



19 



our Fatliers, to provide for " the training up of a 
successive ministry in the country ^"^ it is ours to pro- 
vide for • the training of a ministry sufficiently nu- 
merous for tlie world-wide enterprise tliat now lies 
open before us. "We have not only our posterity 
to care for, but the destitute of all lands ; and all 
our Missionary Societies, both Foreign and Domes- 
tic, depend, for their permanent success, on the pro- 
vision which shall continue to be made for Collegi- 
ate and Theological education in this country. 

How cheering and grateful to reflect, that we 
have come to this time, and to these high responsi- 
bilities, with a system of education, formed to our 
hands, which, in its essential characteristics, is suited 
to our advanced position, and to its recently de- 
veloped relations to the conversion of the world ! 
Religious in its aim, its foundations were laid in 
faith and prayer ; and long experience has shown it 
to be adapted to the religious ends for which it was 
designed. It has been owned of God, in the train- 
ing of the educated ministry of the country, for two 
hundred years. It is still, to a large extent, in the 
hands of religious men, and is producing the same 
results. It is manifestly capable of accommodating 
itself to any extent of territory, and to any amount 
of population, to which the nation may grow. It 
needs only to be prosecuted with vigor, to accom- 






:i3ljte#S 




20 






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plisli all that may be desired, in tlie way of educa- 
tion, to supply a competent ministry for every 
opening field, until tlie gospel shall be preached to 
all on the earth who have ears to hear. 

I now ask your attention to the necessity and 
religious importance of the ^'' Society for the Promo- 
tion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the 
Westr 

This Society is the child of Home Missions. It 
was born of the Missionary spirit, and its object is 
to provide laborers to meet the demands of the 
Missionary cause. Its necessity became apparent in 
the prosecution of the work, which it is thus de- 
signed to promote. It was on this wise. 

The Home Missionary Society was planting its 
laborers on the "Western field. They were educated 
men. They had been trained up under the system 
of education, of which I have spoken. They knew 
its importance to the develop inent of the religious 
resources of a Christian community, for the good of 
mankind. And there were spread out- before them 
great States, now in their infancy, but soon to be 
full of people, mighty in wealth and power. These 
they would reconcile to God. They desired and 
sought their salvation and that of their posterity. 
But what were they — the few missionaries on the 
field, and all that could be expected to join them 






21 

from tlie older States — wliat were tliey, to tlie 
rushing of tlie people from the East, and from all 
quarters of the globe ? Tliey contemplated the 
greatness of the Missionary work, and to them it 
was the clearest of all truths, the most manifest of 
all Providential indications, that they too, like the 
Pilgrim Fathers, ought '•'-betimes to endeavor the 
erection of a College," in each of the rising States of 
their labors and prayers, " for the training up of a 
successive ministry in the country." Worthy men 
were they of such an ancestry — worthy of such a 
training. They took counsel together on their sev- 
eral fields. They consulted the wisdom of experience 
in the older States. They made their appeal to such 
local interests and religious principle as could be 
awakened to aid them, in the new communities 
which they designed to bless. They committed the 
cause to God, and, in the midst of their Missionary 
toils, they put their hands to the work of laying 
foundations, for the advancement of education, on a 
scale in some measure answerable to the great and 
growing necessities of the field. 

Thus were originated the institutions in Ohio, 
Indiana, and Illinois, which first united in seeking 
the organization and aid of this Society.* The 



* These were. Lane Seminary, Western Reserve College, and 
Marietta College, Ohio ; Illinois College, in Illinois ; and Wa- 
bash College, Indiana. 



22 



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3 



founders of tliese institutions, from their very begin- 
ning, were aware of tlieir partial and necessary 
dependence, for a time, upon Eastern benevolence. 
Aid was liberally pledged from Eastern sources, and 
tbey were encouraged to make tlieir appeals to our 
cliurclies, for sucli assistance as migbt be needed to 
sustain tlieir Instructors, from year to year, until 
permanent endowments should be secured. Their 
necessities soon became matters of fact, and often of 
painful experience ; and they availed themselves of 
this liberty of appeal to the churches of the older 
States. In the mean time, numerous other Colleges 
had been projected in the West, moved by the mul- 
tifarious impulses of a discordant and enterprising 
people. These also looked to the Eastern churches 
for aid. Applications were thus coming to us from 
every portion of the West. But they were without 
concert, and often conflicting in their claims. It was 
found, also, that in many cases the gifts of benevo- 
lence were utterly wasted in ill-judged and imprac- 
ticable schemes. Good men were becoming weary 
of the uncertainties of Western Institutions, and of 
the exhaustless multiplicity of their demands. 

It was apparent to the intelligent observers of 
this state of things, that a Society was needed, to 
select, on the Western field, such projected Institu- 
tions as should be found worthy of special assistance, 



^^Al^iOiVOQQCC rtfW.-WrttTf . 



23 



to combine tlieir applications, and commend tliem 
to the "Eastern cliurclies and to tlie public at large, 
on tlie effective and economical plan of a single and 
concentrated agency. The Society was accordingly 
formed, on whose Eighth Anniversary we are here 
assembled. Its object is to prevent, as far as possi- 
ble, all useless drafts upon Eastern benevolence, on 
behalf of Colleges, which have been or may be 
projected at the West, and to provide a channel, 
through which the purer streams of sympathy and 
fellowship with those who are laboring in the great 
cause of Western education, may continue to flow 
on undisturbed, with the copiousness and strength 
of a mighty river. 

Such were the origin and object of our Society. 
That the time for its organization and efforts had 
fully come, is more and more manifest, as it advances 
in its work. Its doings are before the public in its 
Annual Keports, and its immense usefulness is grate- 
fully acknowledged at the West, in the timely and 
essential aid it has afforded to eight Western Insti- 
tutions. Three of these, through its cooperation, 
are already placed upon permanent foundations of 
endowment. The others are laboring with the hope 
of attaining, in a few years, the same position of 
independence and perpetuity. It has inspired the 
friends of Christian education at the West with 



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m^d 




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fresli courage and confidence ; and as tlie population 
advances to take possession of new States and Terri- 
tories, they are already looking about tliem, under 
the auspices of this Society, for points of influence 
and promise, at whicli to plant other Colleges and 
Seminaries, as the people shall have need. Who 
will not say, that this is as it should be ? It places 
the East in communion with the West. It af- 
fords an opportunity of adapting existing means to 
desired ends. It causes the great hearts of our 
churches, Eastern and Western, to beat in sympathy 
with each other ; and secures, under God, the grad- 
ual and healthful extension of our own Puritan sys- 
tem of liberal education. 

And the Institutions aided by this Society have 
received the seal of the Divine approbation. Like 
the Colleges of the older States, in which the prin- 
ciples of Christianity are earnestly inculcated, these 
Western Colleges, while yet in their infancy, have 
been the scenes of the most interesting awakenings 
and revivals of religion. Hundreds of young men 
have been converted in them. Nor was this a result 
unlooked for, or unsought. It has been in answer 
to prayer and earnest endeavor. It is but a con- 
tinued Divine testimony to the fact, that Colleges, 
when conducted on religious principles, are among 
the most favored scenes of those gracious influences 



25 

wliicli convert the soul. Tliey are thus not only the 
educators of the young men who resort to them, but, 
in many cases, the means of their conversion. It is 
indeed the glory of our educational system, and of 
the principles on which it is conducted, that in so 
many instances it enlists the men whom it trains 
for the ministry. Well may we regard our Colleges 
as missionary institutions, since, in them, the mis- 
sionary spirit is so often enkindled and cherished, 
by the light, and truth, and spiritual influences, 
with which they are wont to be favored and blessed. 
Surely too the Society, which secures the existence 
and the religious character and influence of such 
Institutions, in the rising States of this vast Repub- 
lic, is none other than a great helper of the Mission- 
ary cause. And if the Puritan principle and aim of 
our educational system at the West, are endangered 
by the competition of the schools of the Jesuits, as 
they doubtless are, then our Society is indispensable, 
and we should value its continued existence and its 
vigorous operations, as we would the cause of reli- 
gion, in its power to save. 



Then, let this Society live. Let it live in the 
hearts and the prayers of the churches. Let it be 
sustained by the friends of our republican institu- 
tions of liberty and law. By the liberal contributions 



26 

of all who love tlie cause in whicli it labors, let it 
be furnislied with the sinews of power for its great 
work. And thus supported, let it be relied on, as 
the right arm of the strength of the new and rising 
Missionary Colleges of the West. Let it move on 
from strength to strength, until it shall have planted 
its Institutions in every new State which is yet to 
be formed, and there shall be no more West to be 
supplied. Child of Home Missions, as it is, let it 
live and labor, until it shall have accomplished all 
that the Home Missionary cause, in the length and 
breadth of the land, shall demand of it. Then, 
when this Society shall have done its work, it shall 
be said of it, with more truth than is expressed in 
the poetic conception of the relation of human in- 
fancy to age, 

" The child's the father of the man." 

It will have produced, in far larger measure, that 
of which it was born; and the last shall be first, 
and the first last. The Missionary spirit will live, 
and the Colleges planted by the aid of this Society 
will live, to illustrate, to all coming ages, the heav- 
enly sympathies of the principles in which they 
originated. 

These Institutions will be fellow-laborers with 
the Puritan Colleges of the older States. The dif- 



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27 

ference in their ages will be forgotten in tlie abiding 
firmness of tlieir foundations and tlie amplitude of 
their provisions. Tliey will no more need to ask 
for a morsel of bread or a " peck of corn," but the 
gold of California and the wealth of the nation will 
be tributary to their ever-increasing means of im- 
provement and usefulness. The intellectual " riches 
of the Gentiles" shall come to them. With every 
desirable advantage for the acquisition of knowledge, 
their sons will be among the children of the light 
and of the day. From the bosom of sanctified sci- 
ence, shall they go forth in myriads, to bless the 
world, to " build the old wastes" of other lands, and 
to " raise up the former desolations." 

On the vast field of their toils and triumphs, 
they will meet with the sons of the Missionary Col- 
leges of Africa, of China, of India, and of Oceanica. 
Heart to heart, and hand to hand, shall they labor, 
till all the realms of earth shall be restored, like 
themselves, to brotherhood and love. Neither shall 
they learn war any more. 

" Giant aggregate of nations ! 
Glorious whole of glorious parts !" 

And He, whose right it is to reign, shall reign. 

Such is the prophecy of the kingdom of God in 
this world. To this end are directed all our Mis- 



28 



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sionary plans and labors. But to its achievement, 
in its time, a condition indispensable is education ; 
Christian, liberal education, the education of the 
ministry of the church ; the very system of education 
which it is our object to promote and extend. Yes, 
the consummation of all things will be delayed, until 
the gospel shall be preached by a living ministry to 
every creature. And they that preach must be 
" faithful men" — " able to teach." There is no prom- 
ise in the gospel, that by the sounding of " rams' 
horns" a nation shall be converted. Nor are we to 
look for miracles, in any form, to consummate what 
it has pleased God to promise only through the 
preaching of his word. 

It is the mark of a false religion to hope that 
God will convert the world by a miracle. But 
they that have the true faith must show it by their 
works. As the " husbandman waiteth for the pre- 
cious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for 
it," and waters and weeds his field, in hope, to the 
season's end, so must we plant and cherish those 
permanent institutions, those "trees of centuries," 
which are adapted to yield fruits of righteousness 
in all time to come. Let, then, the whole earth be 
studded with these points of light ; let Puritan Col- 
leges and Seminaries, in all lands, send out their 
sons, in sufficient numbers to preach the gospel to 




^ 



29 

the myriads of tMs earth's population, and our Mis- 
sionary work will be done. The tithes will all be in 
the storehouse. The Lord will be proved herewith ; 
and who shall say, that he will not open to the 
earth the windows of heaven, and pour out a bless- 
ing upon all people, " that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it V 

" Fly swifter round, ye wheels of time, 
And bring the welcome day." 



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